Posted by: allducks on: August 25, 2009
1. Breastfeeding is not fun.
2. My mother seems to rememer it akin to skipping through a bluebell field. A joyful time.
3. To me it is a mine field filled with continuous trepidation. A chore without joy.
4. I feel locked up at home, like a cow. Like in a milk booth at the mercy of milk token wielding baby.
5. Like a slave to feeding, my day seems to revolve around sitting up with a wailing baby hanging from my chest.
6. I do not feel duckling and me bond in this ‘magical’ experience. At other times yes, this time no.
7. I am sick of mothers of bottlefed babies telling me how lucky I am.
8. Would you like my swollen, sore, leaking boobs?
9. Which I might add will never be seen by either boy nor myself as anything to delight in.
10. In short, breastfeeding is not fun.
Posted by: allducks on: August 8, 2009
All it takes is a few hours of hysterical crying (on the part of duckling) and various solutions such as checking for a dirty diaper, feeding, rocking, walking the corridors (on the part of first time ducks) for everyone to feel inept and totally out of their depth. I am exhausted beyond belief tonight and it isn’t even midnight yet.
This is what about 6 hours of intermittent hysteria will do to a sane woman. Of course Boy duck is totally being a cool cucumber doing most of the roking and walking and shush-ing and singing soothing words. Meanwhile all I want to do is stand under a hot shower and cry my eyes out. And then magically wake up at noon tomorrow with a perfectly happy and content baby duck.
Not a chance right? But a woman has got to dream right! G’nite.
Posted by: allducks on: August 6, 2009
I am so tired of hearing and reading women in real life and women bloggers go on about how if they don’t/ can’t/ couldn’t experience natural childbirth (i.e pushing a multi-pound award winning baby out of their vagina’s with only minimal/ some help of pain relief) they will not/ don’t feel like wholesome women. They all claim that this one experience is what would complete them, make the passage of childbirth worth bearing etc.
I beg to differ. And therefore infer that there must be something fundamentally wrong with me or with you. I mean after 9 months of waddling like a hippo, burping and farting like a truck driver, not being able to eat sushi or soft goats cheese, really all I wanted was a happy healthy baby. I was totally happy to leave the medical decision to my doctor as to what was best for us both, baby and me. Yes a natural birth may have been easier to recover from but there are so many more things that could go wrong, besides the pain of a long labour. Also a c-sec for medical reasons (not planned, as in too posh to push) has so many advantages, not least the amazing pain relief and near invisible scar, the fact that I was not writhing in pain and crushing Boy’s hand or hopped up on drugs yelling obscenities. It also rendered the yelling duck pulled from my innards a memory not fogged out in any way by drugs or intense pain but instead a clear focussed snapshot in time. And yes, I hear there is adrenaline involved in natural births which would make this true for women undergoing natural birth but really with all those drugs and all that pain there must have been a twinge of blurring, no? Anyway, to each their own. I have no regrets and would not hesitate to opt for the same option for the same reasons if I had to do it all over again.
Yes some women think of this as a marathon, a motivational get to the finish line, look at me how bloody brave I am. I guess I am just not one of those women. And I don’t appreciate being constantly told how wonderful natural childbirth is, how a c-sec could never compare etc. Go away self-righteous people. I’m having too much fun with my duck, c-sec’d out of me.
Posted by: allducks on: August 4, 2009
The thing everyone impresses upon you before the baby is born is how your breast milk is going to be the amazing gift of immunity that you will give your child. Words like colostrum, foremilk, nipple shield, hindmilk are bandied around and combined with an absolute loss of dignity with your boobs on display quickly become the norm. In many ways I was totally prepared for this. I knew that if I could I would want to feed my duck for the first 4 or 5 months. And the actual feeding is not so bad. What I did not count on was how enclosed this has made me feel within the four walls of my home.
Our local NHS has recommended not taking duck out on the trains for atleast 3 months. But its ok to take duck to the local shopping centre for a meal/ coffee. This however involves military precision of sterilised bottles, expressed milk and bundling duck into a pram to cry blue murder from. And with just one bottle of expressed milk it gives us a window of between 2-4 hours depending on a number of factors.
I’ve only done it a few times so far and none has been a very sucessful trip. Leaving duck with my parents or Boy and escaping for the rare coffee on my own however has given me the fresh air I needed to get myself back on an even keel. And on board with being the resident Mother Dairy. I guess with time all of us, duck and I, will get used to a routine and feel happier venturing out. For now though we seem to be staying home a lot more than I’d like.
Posted by: allducks on: July 27, 2009
Now we are up at 3.30am on a regular basis, much like the partygoing population of London. However ours is a more bleary eyed existance of feeding and diaper changing, slightly less glamourous than traipsing around in the shivering cold in high heels and short skirts looking for a minicab. Our duckling is less than a delight when there is wailing loud enough, especially when all our neighbours are also forced awake at an unearthly hour. And yet even at that time, half-awake, all I can think is how much I want to stop the crying, to soothe ducky in some way, to be the care provider that such a small helpless creature needs . There is something endearing about that level of helplessness. Something that has sprung free from my insides – a protective gene I was sure was MIA – each night.
As for continual, instant maternal feelings on birthing a child, those are more complicated. And I’m not sure how to desribe them yet. Maybe I’ll try tomorrow.
Posted by: allducks on: July 20, 2009
And just like that, 9 months on, baby duck is here. And we are both madly madly deeply deeply in love. So worth the wait and backache and million loo trips and beyond any level of anticipation.
Things will never be the same again.
Smitten mother & father Duck siging off for now….
Posted by: allducks on: July 5, 2009
In my last few days of child-less freedom my mind has had so many questions and such need for making lists that I am waking up to pee 5 times (yes, 5 times interrupted sleep) and writing notes on scribbles of paper while more than half-asleep. Mostly undecipherable in the light of day.
One of this mornings notes, just below ‘book grocery delivery’, says ‘be good? do not drop baby’.
What???
Posted by: allducks on: July 3, 2009
Almost there. After months of cribbing about how slow this is all going, time is now of the essence. In a few short days there will be a very small person for us to look after. Without dropping it on its head.
And what I fear the most is how not one maternal instinct will leap forward and I will be like a fish out of water holding a baby duck. God help us all.
Posted by: allducks on: June 29, 2009
Ok. We have everything. Including a pram I don’t particularly like and a birth plan that would scare the bejeezus out of anybody less prepared. The heat is getting to me and even my swim (which dislodges half the pool water) does not seem to help. I am like a landlocked walrus blubbing around the house and shouting out strange sentences and phases at nobody in particular.
When oh when will this baby arrive? Ok that was rhetorical – it could be anytime now. But I need, no make that crave, the excitement – imagine how bored I am if even the prospect of poo and breastfeeding is rocking my boat?!!!
Posted by: allducks on: June 20, 2009
Why does such a small person need so much stuff? We are knee deep in nails, allen keys, hammers, screwdrivers and pieces of wood accompanied by manuals one needs an engineering degree and multiple language skills to crack. And that’s just the cot and changing table.
Then there are piles of clothes, sheets, matress protectors, tiny socks and towels to be washed. Cupboard space to be re-arranged to fit all this stuff in.
And of course a second mortgage to pay for all the aforementioned stuff and other necessities like car seats, an unending supply of nappies and bum cream. My lists now have sub-lists with a life and language of their own and my credit card strip needs a serious vacation.
Apparently once the baby is out in the world and waking every two hours we will think of this time as ‘relaxed’.
Right now I just don’t see it.
